A low carbon economy is one where businesses deliver products and services while reducing their level of carbon emissions.

The Observatory and Atkins recently completed a research project, commissioned by Advantage West Midlands, to develop a better understanding of opportunities the low carbon economy can deliver in the West Midlands.

Key findings

Key findings from the research include:

The low carbon economy can deliver opportunities across a wide range of business sectors, not just to those seen as being in the 'traditionally' environmental technologies sector.
Sectors with clear opportunities in the West Midlands include: Non-metallic mineral goods; Automotive & transport equipment; Metals & metal products; Construction; Environmental Goods & Services; Food & beverages; Transport, storage & communications; and Public services.
Businesses can benefit from the low carbon economy in two ways: diversify into new low carbon products or become more efficient in their current processes (decarbonise).

This research will inform regional policy to support and encourage businesses in the transition to a low carbon economy.

How the research is being used

Local authority and business leaders in the West Midlands were asking ‘what are the risks and what are the opportunities in the low carbon economy?'’

In this video, Dr Simon Slater, Executive Director of Sustainability West Midlands, discusses how working with the Observatory on this research project is helping his organisation and partners in the region answer such questions:

Watch on Viddler.com

Watch slidecast summarising the research

John Walker summarises the research in this slidecast:

Watch on viddler.com | Get slides (ppt, 2.1mb)

Links to local authorities

In this slidecast, John summarises how the research can be used by local authorities.

Watch on viddler.com | Get slides (ppt, 1.4mb)

Download the reports

Published 8th March 2010

Low carbon economy in the West Midlands: main report (pdf, 767kb)
Low carbon economy in the West Midlands: technical report (pdf, 2.4mb)
Supporting datasets (xls, 115 kb)

The Observatory also produced a short profile for each of the 14 strategic authorities in the West Midlands. The profiles illustrate opportunities, strengths and potential vulnerabilities that can be seen in each local authority. These profiles will provide useful information for local authorities as they prepare their local economic assessments.

Published 30th March 2010

Birmingham briefing (pdf, 405kb)
Coventry briefing (pdf, 400kb)
Dudley briefing (pdf, 399kb)
Herefordshire briefing (pdf, 421kb)
Sandwell briefing (pdf, 361kb)
Shropshire briefing (pdf, 391kb)
Solihull briefing (pdf, 361kb)
Staffordshire briefing (pdf, 370kb)
Stoke-on-Trent briefing (pdf, 361kb)
Telford and Wrekin briefing (pdf, 364kb)
Walsall briefing (pdf, 376kb)
Warwickshire briefing (pdf, 356kb)
Wolverhampton briefing (pdf, 359kb)
Worcestershire briefing (pdf, 389kb)

Regional opportunities

We commissioned Atkins Global to produce a review of the opportunities for growth into the low carbon economy in the West Midlands.

The research aimed to understand the strengths that currently exist in the regional economy and identify the low carbon opportunities available across those strengths.

Key findings include:

Sectors with clear opportunities in the West Midlands include: Non-metallic mineral goods; Automotive & transport equipment; Metals & metal products; Construction; Environmental Goods & Services; Food & beverages; Transport, storage & communications; and Public services.
These sectors are present across all local authorities in the region.
The public sector has a key role to play in promoting the low carbon economy through its procurement practices.
To maximize the benefits across the West Midlands, some of the barriers that should be overcome are: consumer demand, infrastructure, skills provision and business support.

Carbon constraints

The Observatory produced local authority level analysis of sectors vulnerable to potential carbon constraints at local authority level.

This work was based on regional level analysis conducted by URS Consulting for the West Midlands Economic Strategy. These findings will allow interventions to be targeted at the more vulnerable sectors before legislation makes it essential.

Key findings include:

The sectors more vulnerable to carbon constraints in the region are: Health & social work; Transport and communications; Education and construction.
To a large extent, businesses in these vulnerable sectors are already responding to the low carbon agenda in their own efforts by improving their energy and resource efficiency.
Support measures should also be implemented at regional and local level to help mitigation against potential risks.

This work was used by Atkins in developing the main report (pdf, 767kb) and is available on request from the Observatory.

Next steps

The Observatory worked with the City Region on more detailed local authority profiles and a wider City Region profile to identify the particular strengths and opportunities for the area. This set of City Region reports was published in May 2010.